boiling point

radio free europe / radio liberty reports about the continued strike of Belarusian vendors in Minsk. excerpt:

Importantly, the vendors' protest has shown the soft underbelly of Lukashenka's regime. First, the protest has shown that the regime is really afraid of large-scale social unrest. As long as the regime has to deal with several dozen oppositionists on the street, it routinely sends riot police to respond. But when a protest involves a wider social group, police methods are deemed inadvisable. Apart from some 100,000 market vendors, the problem of VAT payments on Russian imports affects also hundreds of thousands of customers -- essentially Lukashenka's bread-and-butter supporters -- who are too poor to buy foodstuffs or other basics in shops and purchase them at outdoor markets. Police batons won't do much good in such a situation.

the mere fact that this protest has lasted nearly a month is quite unusual. each night for the last several nights there has also been a peaceful protest to release political prisoner Mikhail Marynich and others. opposition politicians have planned a large rally for this friday, though official permission has been denied. last night our 20-something group here in philly had a long session of prayer for Belarus, in the political as well as religious freedom spheres. things seem to be approaching the boiling point there.